Cat predation of Kangaroo Island dunnarts in aftermath of bushfire

The Kangaroo Island dunnart (Sminthopsis aitkeni) is a critically endangered marsupial species with an estimated population of ~ 500 individuals found only on the western end of Australia's third largest island. Severe bushfires recently burnt more than 98% of its known and predicted habitat that was already under pressure from fragmentation. After the fires, we found evidence of eight individual dunnarts in the digestive tract of seven feral cats, out of the 86 collected in remaining unburnt refugia; thus demonstrating the need of immediate risk management efforts after large-scale stochastic events.

www.nature.com/scientificreports/ At each of the management zones depicted in Fig. 1, cage traps were baited with chicken wings in afternoons and checked the following mornings. All cats were humanely euthanised by firearm. At the Western River Refuge a grid of between 40 and 60 traps were operational during this time. Another 40 to 50 traps at the North West Conservation Alliance and 25 traps were established at the Church Road Management Zone. The traps were set on an ad hoc basis soon after the fires and more strategically as the program progressed.
Diet analysis. We collected stomach and large intestine of cats; placing the tissue in individual resealable plastic bags each identified with the cats pelage, sex, date and trap location. We dispatched frozen samples (− 20 °C) to a specialist lab for prey identification (ScatsAbout, Majors Creek, NSW). We found readily recognizable prey in gastric content, and confirmed their identification by comparison with reference bone collection. Digested mammalian prey in large intestine samples were washed and sieved and subsequently identified with hair identification techniques based on the overall profile and length of the hair, their medulla, cross-section, and cuticle scales casts patterns as described earlier 12 and developed in the Hair ID software (Ecobyte, Australia). We made identification to the highest possible taxonomic status. We used Wald method to quantify 95% confidence intervals.
Ethics declaration. Our study utilized tissues from feral cats that were killed for other purposes than obtaining these materials for scientific research. The feral cat is categorised a pest in Australia and undergoes a national control program (https:// www. awe. gov. au/ biose curity-trade/ invas ive-speci es/ feral-anima ls-austr alia/ feral-cats). The feral cats were trapped and humanely euthanised in accordance with the South Australia Animal Welfare Act 1985 in an already ongoing conservation program. Institutional animal care and use committee approval was not required for scavenging the tissue of these feral cats, as per the prevailing guidelines from University of Adelaide.

Results
We obtained stomach contents and digestive tracts of 86 cats trapped in February-August 2020. We identified 263 distinct prey items (Fig. 2 We observed the remains of eight KI dunnarts in seven different cats (Supplementary Table 2). Three dunnarts were readily identifiable through distinct anatomical features as they were nearly whole carcasses (Fig. 3). Five more instances of KI dunnart predation were identified based on characteristic hair features. We observed dunnart tissue in both stomach and large intestine of one cat, suggesting recent predation of at least two individuals. Therefore, 8.1% (95% CI 3.8-16.2) of the sampled cats had predated on dunnart. These KI dunnarts were predated within the North-West Conservation Alliance at the DeMole River and the Western River Refuge (~ 10% of cats predating on dunnarts). No evidence of the dunnart was found in the remaining 19 cats trapped in the Church Road area. The KI dunnart comprised 3.2% (95% CI 0-7.9) of the recovered tetrapods prey items across three study areas.   www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Birds were not identified down to the species level, and this group represented 18.3% of all tetrapod prey (95% CI 6.6-26.9), followed by macropods (13.9%; 95% CI 6.6-20.8).

Discussion
Our results confirm for the first time that feral cats do predate on KI dunnart and that they were efficient hunters of this species directly after the fire. The high rates of predation also show that sampling of cat stomachs was a highly successful method of detecting the species. In comparison, scientific surveys in the earlier years resulted in much lower live capture rates (< 0.1% per trap-night, compared to 8.1% of cats) 5,9 , suggesting the relative ease by which cats were preying on this species, that had remained elusive to human surveying efforts. Diet analysis represents predation as a small snapshot of what the feral cat has recently consumed, restricted to the time before the prey is fully digested, estimated between 26.5 and 35.7 h 13 . Thus, cats present substantial predation pressure, especially for an endangered species with a low population size living in a small and degraded habitat.
We also found remains of southern brown bandicoot. This endangered species is likely the last out of eight native bandicoot species still extant in the wild in South Australia. The introduced red fox (Vulpes vulpes) is a known predator of the southern brown bandicoot 14 , therefore KI is an important refuge for this species because of the island's lack of fox predation.
These factors increase the urgency and continuity of feral cat control efforts in the immediate aftermath of bushfire especially in unburnt refugia on KI. Feral cats have been removed from more than four dozen islands worldwide 15 . Most of these islands have been small, with > 95% being less than 10 km 2 in area. In comparison, 4400 km 2 size of the KI presents a unique challenge to cat eradication efforts. In parallel to continuing the challenging efforts to remove feral cats from the large island 16 , it is critically important to sustain feral cat control at priority threatened species refugial sites.

Conclusion
KI and its endemic dunnart species are emblematic of challenges faced by threatened species across the globe that are confined in increasingly fragmented habitats, coping with climate change's catastrophic consequences, and affected by introduced predators. These challenges act successively and cumulatively. Species already compromised by low population and small geographic range can easily slide into extinction during environmental catastrophes like the recent bushfires. While these events occur stochastically, their frequency and vigor have www.nature.com/scientificreports/ been augmented by anthropogenic influences resulting in increasingly drier and warmer weather conditions 17,18 . Mortality brought about by episodes like wildfire is especially damaging to endangered species with low population sizes, reducing effective population size and causing genetic bottlenecks. Therefore, efforts to provide immediate relief from an invasive predator, including the provision of refuge, is critical and can mean the difference between survival and extinction.

Data availability
All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article (and its Supplementary  Information files).